Abbas Kiarostami Dead at 76

A year that may be most remembered for the number of monumental artists who passed during its twelve months has just dealt one of its greatest losses: various Iranian news outlets are reporting that Abbas Kiarostami — the man who changed many a Western viewer’s conception of his native country with masterpieces such as Close-Up, Taste of Cherry, the Koker Trilogy, Like Someone in Love, Certified Copy, Ten, and The Wind Will Carry Us, to name but a few — has passed away at age 76 in Paris, following an extended battle with gastrointestinal cancer.

Pinpointing the particulars of Kiarostami’s oeuvre is a task too large for what is, admittedly, a quickly assembled obituary, and those who’ve known his work longer will do a more probing job at various places — how many non-Western artists earn this level of love upon passing away, anyhow? — so I’ll tread lightly by noting, as many others shall, that nearly every one of his pictures offers some new way of considering their medium. Be it the meta-textual discrepancies that form our concepts of documentary and fiction (Close-Up, Ten, Koker) to the romantic (Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love) to ostensibly straight documentary (ABC Africa) to ostensibly straight narrative (Taste of Cherry), they cover terrain in such a way as to make every viewing of any work essentially a fresh experience.